United States
Soon after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Makeba learned that her mother had died. When she tried to return home for the funeral, she found that her South African passport had been cancelled. Makeba would remain in exile until 1990. Two of Makeba's uncles were killed in the massacre. The incident left her concerned about her family, many of whom were still in South Africa, including her daughter: the nine-year-old Bongi joined her mother in the US in August 1960. During her first few years in the US, Makeba had rarely sung explicitly political music, but her popularity had led to an increase in awareness of apartheid and the anti-apartheid movement. Following the Sharpeville killings, Makeba felt a responsibility to help, as she had been able to leave the country while others had not. From this point, she became an increasingly outspoken critic of apartheid and the white-minority government; before the massacre, she had taken care to avoid overtly political statements in South Africa.
Her musical career in the US continued to flourish. She signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, and released Miriam Makeba, her first studio album, in 1960, backed by Belafonte's band. RCA Victor chose to buy out Makeba's contract with Gallotone Records, and despite Makeba's inability to perform in South Africa, Gallotone received US$45,000 in the deal, which meant that Makeba received no royalties for her debut album. The album included one of her most famous hits in the US, "Qongqothwane", which was known in English as "The Click Song" because Makeba's audiences could not pronounce the Xhosa name. Time magazine called her the "most exciting new singing talent to appear in many years", and Newsweek compared her voice to "the smoky tones and delicate phrasing" of Ella Fitzgerald and the "intimate warmth" of Frank Sinatra. The album was not commercially successful, and Makeba was briefly dropped from RCA Victor: she was re-signed soon after as the label recognised the commercial possibilities of the growing interest in African culture. Her South African identity had been downplayed during her first signing, but it was strongly emphasised the second time to take advantage of this interest. Makeba made several appearances on television, often in the company of Belafonte. In 1962, Makeba and Belafonte sang at the birthday party for US President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, but Makeba did not go to the party afterwards because she was ill. Kennedy nevertheless insisted on meeting her, so Belafonte sent a car to pick her up.
In 1964, Makeba released her second studio album for RCA Victor, The World of Miriam Makeba. An early example of world music, the album peaked at number eighty-six on the Billboard 200. Makeba's music had a cross-racial appeal in the US; white Americans were attracted to her image as an "exotic" African performer, and black Americans related their own experiences of racial segregation to Makeba's struggle against apartheid. Makeba found company among other African exiles and émigrés in New York, including Hugh Masekela, to whom she was married from 1964 to 1966. During their marriage, Makeba and Masekela were neighbours of the jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie in Englewood, New Jersey; they spent much of their time in Harlem. She also came to know actors Marlon Brando and Lauren Bacall, and musicians Louis Armstrong and Ray Charles. Fellow singer-activist Nina Simone became friendly with Makeba, as did actor Cicely Tyson; Makeba and Simone performed together at Carnegie Hall. Makeba was among black entertainers, activists, and intellectuals in New York at the time who believed that the civil rights movement and popular culture could reinforce each other, creating "a sense of intertwined political and cultural vibrancy"; other examples included Maya Angelou and Sidney Poitier. She later described her difficulty living with racial segregation, saying "There wasn't much difference in America; it was a country that had abolished slavery but there was apartheid in its own way."
Makeba's music was also popular in Europe, and she travelled and performed there frequently. Acting on the advice of Belafonte, she added songs from Latin America, Europe, Israel, and elsewhere in Africa to her repertoire. She visited Kenya in 1962 in support of the country's independence from British colonial rule, and raised funds for its independence leader Jomo Kenyatta. Later that year she testified before the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid about the effects of the system, asking for economic sanctions against South Africa's National Party government. She requested an arms embargo against South Africa, on the basis that weapons sold to the government would likely be used against black women and children. As a result, her music was banned in South Africa, and her South African citizenship and right to return were revoked. Makeba thus became stateless, but she was soon issued passports by Algeria, Guinea, Belgium and Ghana. Throughout her lifetime she held nine passports and was granted honorary citizenship in ten countries.
Soon after her testimony, Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, invited her to sing at the inauguration of the Organisation of African Unity; she was the only performer asked to participate. As word spread about her ban from South Africa, she became a cause célèbre for Western liberals, and her presence in the civil rights movement linked it with the anti-apartheid struggle. In 1964 she was taught the song "Malaika" by a Kenyan student while backstage at a performance in San Francisco; the song later became a staple of her performances.
Throughout the 1960s, Makeba strengthened her involvement with a range of black-centred political movements, including the civil rights, anti-apartheid, Black Consciousness, and Black Power movements. She briefly met the Trinidadian-American activist Stokely Carmichael—the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party—after Belafonte invited him to one of Makeba's concerts; they met again in Conakry six years later. They entered a relationship, initially kept secret from all but their closest friends and family. Makeba participated in fundraising activities for various civil rights groups, including a benefit concert for the 1962 Southern Christian Leadership Conference that civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the "event of the year". Following a concert and rally in Atlanta in support of King, Makeba and others were denied entrance to a restaurant as a result of Jim Crow laws, leading to a televised protest in front of the establishment. She also criticised King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference for its investment in South African companies, informing press that "Now my friend of long standing supports the country's persecution of my people and I must find a new idol". Her identity as an African woman in the civil rights movement helped create "an emerging liberal consensus" that extreme racial discrimination, whether domestically or internationally, was harmful. In 1964 she testified at the UN for a second time, quoting a song by Vanessa Redgrave in calling for quick action against the South African government.
Makeba and Belafonte received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba on 15 March 1966. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid, including several songs critical of the South African government, such as "Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd" ("Watch out Verwoerd", a reference to Hendrik Verwoerd, one of the architects of apartheid), along with Makeba's composition "Nongqongqo" about political prisoners, which explicitly mentioned activists such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe. It sold widely and raised Makeba's profile in the US; Belafonte and Makeba's concert tour following its release was often sold out, and the album has been described as the best they made together. Makeba's use of lyrics in Swahili, Xhosa, and Sotho led to her being seen as a representation of an "authentic" Africa by American audiences. In 1967, more than ten years after she first recorded the song, the single "Pata Pata" was released in the US on an album of the same title, and became a worldwide hit. During its recording, she and Belafonte had a disagreement, after which they stopped recording together.
